REBTAM: reliable energy balance traffic aware data reporting algorithm for object tracking in multi-sink wireless sensor networks

Recently, Multi-sink Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have received more and more attention due to their significant advantages over the single sink WSNs such as improving network throughput, balancing energy consumption, and prolonging network lifetime. Object tracking is regarded as one of the key applications of WSNs due to its wide real-life applications such as wildlife animal monitoring and military area intrusion detection. However, many object tracking researches usually focus on how to track the location of objects accurately, while few researches focus on data reporting. In this work, we propose an efficient data reporting method for object tracking in multi-sink WSNs. Due to the limited energy resource of sensor nodes, it seems especially important to design an energy efficient data reporting algorithm for object tracking in WSNs. Moreover, the reliable data transmission is an essential aspect that should be considered when designing a WSN for object tracking application, where the loss of data packets will affect the accuracy of the tracking and location estimation of a mobile object. In addition, congestion in WSNs has negative impact on the performance, namely, decreased throughput, increased per-packet energy consumption and delay, thus congestion control is an important issue in WSNs. Consequentially, this paper aims to achieve both minimum energy consumption in reporting operation and balanced energy consumption among sensor nodes for WSN lifetime extension. Furthermore, data reliability is considered in our model where the sensed data can reach the sink node in a more reliable way. Finally, this paper presents a solution that sufficiently exerts the underloaded nodes to alleviate congestion and improve the overall throughput in WSNs. This work first formulates the problem as 0/1 Integer Linear Programming problem, and proposes a Reliable Energy Balance Traffic Aware greedy Algorithm in multi-sink WSNs (REBTAM) to solve the optimization problem. Through simulation, the performance of the proposed approach is evaluated and analyzed compared with the previous work which is related to our topic such as DTAR, NBPR, and MSDDGR protocols.     

Implementing and sustaining lean processes: the dilemma of societal culture effects

Lean processes allow the elimination of waste and the resulting improvements in productivity. However, implementing and sustaining lean processes are easier in some organisations than in others. There may be societal culture differences, as the successes in initial implementation in Japan have not been followed by global success. As organisations accelerate their lean efforts to gain or maintain competitive advantage, studying societal cultural effects seems timely. Understanding of the societal culture that the firm or subsidiary is operating in would be useful in determining how lean processes should lead the effort. Using the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede, we examine the interconnection of societal culture and lean processes. For example, a societal emphasis on individualism is positively associated with a high level of lean process adoption, in terms of individual employee involvement, individual creativity and firm efficiency. A societal emphasis on high uncertainty avoidance is positively associated with a high level of lean process adoption, in terms of control and standardisation, efficiency and long-term philosophy. A societal emphasis on high power distance is positively associated with a high level of lean process adoption, in terms of control and standardisation, and efficiency. A long-term orientation in the society will be positively associated with a high level of lean process adoption, in terms of all of the dimensions. A societal emphasis on femininity will be positively associated with a high level of lean process adoption, in terms of employee involvement, creativity and long-term philosophy.     

Solving comprehensive dynamic job shop scheduling problem by using a GRASP-based approach

There are many dynamic events like new order arrivals, machine breakdowns, changes in due dates, order cancellations, arrival of urgent orders etc. that makes static scheduling approaches very difficult. A dynamic scheduling strategy should be adopted under such production circumstances. In the present study an event driven dynamic job shop scheduling mechanism under machine capacity constraints is proposed. The proposed method makes use of the greedy randomised adaptive search procedure (GRASP) by also taking into account orders due dates and sequence-dependent set-up times. Moreover, order acceptance/rejection decision and Order Review Release mechanism are integrated with scheduling decision in order to meet customer due date requirements while attempting to execute capacity adjustments. We employed a goal programming-based logic which is used to evaluate four objectives: mean tardiness, schedule unstability, makespan and mean flow time. Benchmark problems including number of orders, number of machines and different dynamic events are generated. In addition to event-driven rescheduling strategy, a periodic rescheduling strategy is also devised and both strategies are compared for different problems. Experimental studies are performed to evaluate effectiveness of the proposed method. Obtained results have proved that the proposed method is a feasible approach for rescheduling problems under dynamic environments.     

Optimizing the physical properties of calcium nanoferrites to be suitable in many applications

Calcium nano ferrite with composition CaGd_xEr_yFe_2?x?yO₄ (x?=?y?=?0.0, x?=?0.025, y?=?0.05) was prepared by citrate gel auto combustion method. The prepared samples showed orthorhombic phase structure and the crystallite sizes were found in the range of 32.1–35.3 nm. Detailed observation via the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) showed that the calcium ferrite nano-particles were spherical and capsule like formation shape. The hysteresis loop confirms the magnetic behavior of the investigated samples, which is then discussed on the basis of super exchange interactions. Magnetic parameters such as saturation magnetization, coercivity, and retentivity were obtained. Greater than six-fold increase in coercivity (≈2085 Oe) was observed in calcium nanoferrites compared to the doped samples (≈360 Oe). The CaFe₂O₄-type structure includes edge- and corner sharing BO₆ octahedral, constituting a very unique network similar to perovskite-related nanoparticles. This structural network leads to an improvement in the physical properties of the investigated samples. Great efforts have been made to synthesize pure nanoferrite samples without any secondary phases even after the substitution of low soluble rare earth ions. Special attention should be given to calcium ferrite nanoparticles which are suitable candidates to be used in the manufacturing of bone-like scaffolds, hyperthermia treatment of cancer and biological activity.     

Gauss Gradient and SURF Features for Landmine Detection from GPR Images

Recently, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has been extended as a well-known area to investigate the subsurface objects. However, its output has a low resolution, and it needs more processing for more interpretation. This paper presents two algorithms for landmine detection from GPR images. The first algorithm depends on a multi-scale technique. A Gaussian kernel with a particular scale is convolved with the image, and after that, two gradients are estimated; horizontal and vertical gradients. Then, histogram and cumulative histogram are estimated for the overall gradient image. The bin values on the cumulative histogram are used for discrimination between images with and without landmines. Moreover, a neural classifier is used to classify images with cumulative histograms as feature vectors. The second algorithm is based on scale-space analysis with the number of speeded-up robust feature (SURF) points as the key parameter for classification. In addition, this paper presents a framework for size reduction of GPR images based on decimation for efficient storage. The further classification steps can be performed on images after interpolation. The sensitivity of classification accuracy to the interpolation process is studied in detail.     

Approximate Solutions of Initial Value Problems for Ordinary Differential Equations Using Radial Basis Function Networks

We present a numerical approach for the approximate solutions of first order initial value problems (IVP) by using unsupervised radial basis function networks. The proposed unsupervised method is able to solve IVPs with high accuracy. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach, we also compare its solutions with the solutions obtained by a previously proposed neural network method for representative examples.     

Structural Stabilities and Elastic Thermodynamic Properties of SrTe Compound and SrTe<Subscript>1−<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis></Subscript>Ca<Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis></Subscript> Alloy Under High Pressure

The effect of pressure on the structural, elastic, and thermodynamic properties of SrTe in both B1 (rocksalt) and B2 (CsCl-type) phases and the SrTe_1?x Ca _x alloys with Ca dopant concentrations at x = 0.16667, 0.20, 0.33333, 0.42857, 0.44444 and 0.50 have been investigated using the two new gradient-corrected functional developed by Perdew, J.P.; Burke, K.; Ernzerhof named Density-Gradient Expansion for Exchange in Solids (PBEsol) and generalized Wu–Cohen (WC), in a significant range of pressure from 0 GPa to 30 GPa. The structure parameters, elastic stiffness constants c _ij , the bulk modulus (B), Kleinman parameter (\( \xi \)), shear anisotropies A _shear are also determined. Furthermore, as reported in this study, the aggregate elastic modulus (B, G, E), Poisson’s ratio (ν) and the Lame’s coefficients (λ) are estimated. On the other hand, the ductility, brittleness, longitudinal, transverse sound velocities and the Debye temperature Θ_D(T) are also obtained. Importantly, our results are in reasonable agreement with the available theoretical and experimental data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of the effect of the composition on the properties of the SrTe_1?x Ca _x alloys which may encourage other works for the confirmation of the reported results.     

Discrimination of Olive Oil by Cultivar,Geographical Origin and Quality Using Potentiometric Electronic Tongue Fingerprints

Legal regulations are set for protecting claims regarding olive oil geographical denomination. When meteorological or agroecological factors similarly affect different regions, the origin identification is a challenging task. This study demonstrated the use of a potentiometric electronic tongue coupled with linear discriminant analysis to discriminate the geographical origin of monovarietal Tunisian olive oil produced from local cv Chemlali (Kairouan, Sidi Bouzid or Sfax regions) and cv Sahli (Kairouan, Mahdia or Sousse regions). The potentiometric fingerprints of 12 or eight lipid sensors (for Chemlali and Sahli, respectively), selected using a simulated annealing meta-heuristic algorithm, allowed the correct prediction (repeated K-fold cross-validation) of the geographic production region with sensitivities of 92 ± 7% (Chemlali) and 97 ± 8% (Sahli). It was also confirmed the electronic tongue capability to classify Tunisian olive oil according to olive cultivar or quality grade. The results indicated the possible use of potentiometric fingerprints as a promising innovative strategy for olive oil analysis allowing assessing geographical origin, olive cultivar and quality grade, which are key factors determining olive oil price and consumers’ preference.     

Endosulfan induced biochemical changes in nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria

Pesticide contamination in aquatic ecosystem including paddy fields is a serious global environmental concern. Cyanobacteria are also affected by pesticides as non- target organism. For better exploitation of cyanobacteria as biofertiliser, it is indispensable to select tolerant strains along with understanding of their tolerance. Three cyanobacterial strains viz. Aulosira fertilissima, Anabaena variabilis and Nostoc muscorum were studied for their stress responses to an organochlorine pesticide 'endosulfan' with special reference to oxidative stress, role of proline and antioxidant enzymes in endosulfan induced free radical detoxification. Reduction in growth, photosynthetic pigments and carbohydrate of the test microorganisms were accompanied with increase in their total protein, proline, malondialdehye (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and catalase (CAT) in higher endosulfan doses. Increased amount of MDA is indicative of formation of free radicals, while increased level of CAT, APX, SOD and proline indicated their involvement in free radical scavenging mechanism. In lower concentrations, test pesticide showed increase in photosynthetic pigments. Order of tolerance was Nostoc muscorum>Anabaena variabilis>Aulosira fertilissima.     

Damage of Stainless Steel Components by Olive Paste

Failure of equipment for processing olives interrupted oil production after only 3 weeks in service. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses were used in the present investigation to analyze damaged surfaces. Observations and data suggest that failure was induced via tribocorrosion with a predominance of mechanical damage. This damage is attributed to abrasive wear combined with corrosion of AISI 304L stainless steel in olive paste (seed particles and pulp) mixed with tap water. Microscopic observations revealed fracture and localized plastic deformation in the damaged area along with a tribologically transformed structure and work-hardened surfaces. The tribological behavior of AISI 304L was determined using a pin-on-disc tribometer, and these results were compared to damage on the olive processing equipment. The steel was sensitive to tribo-oxidation, mostly due to abrasion by seeds and steel wear particles, and somewhat due to corrosion reactions with the environment.